


It Happened (But Not To You)

by ashen_key



Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-19
Updated: 2010-08-19
Packaged: 2017-10-11 04:19:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/108304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashen_key/pseuds/ashen_key
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everyone had heard about it, but it wasn't until later that Mandana realised that it had happened because of her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It Happened (But Not To You)

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the prompt:
> 
> _It could have happened.  
> It had to happen.  
> It happened earlier. Later.  
> Nearer. Farther off.  
> It happened, but not to you._

She'd grown up hearing about it, of course. Everyone had. Not just the Federation, but Romulus as well. Everyone had heard about it, but it wasn't until later that she realized that it had happened because of her.

Well, that wasn't strictly true – it had happened because Romulus' sun died, and (the original) Ambassador Spock and the Federation hadn't gotten off their asses in time (typical), and it had happened because the crew shared their captain's grief and sense of honour (and oh, how they were lauded for it, but grudgingly, and in secret, for Vulcan had many friends even after so many decades destroyed), and it had happened because the captain loved his wife and unborn child so very, very much, and had had the vision to take revenge on the entire Federation.

(His unnamed wife, for all who had known her had long since died.)

Like most Romulan girls, Mandana had thought it romantic. Tragic, but gloriously, fiercely, marvellously romantic. Then she'd grown older, and broken one or two hearts (and had some hearts broken of her own), and saw the darkness in that love. She was more realistic now, tempered by experience and wiser for it. Mandana had long since left all her girlish fantasies of life and love and the freedom to do as she damn well felt like behind with her childhood braids.

But then she bumped into him, literally collided with him at a festival, sending him spilling into the mud. They were both more than a little drunk, and for a moment he looked torn between anger and amusement. But then he laughed and flashed her a grin that sent an electric jolt straight to her heart, and something in the way his grin turned lopsided suggested that it was mutual (love at first sight was a storyteller's tool, but no one said anything but instant _connection_). She offered him her hand, and as he clasped it, he said that she'd had the pleasure of knocking down Captain Nero.

_Nero._

For a single, frozen instant, Mandana wished that someone had thought to warn her about how beautiful he was. Dark-eyed and sharp-nosed and, fine, he wasn't anything classical, wasn't anything she'd normally look twice at in the street, but-

But.

But that grin was wild and wicked and kind, all at once, and his eyes were _alive_, and she wanted what they promised. She thought of all the deaths that had happened because that other Nero had loved that other her so very much (she wondered how she knew, not that she did) but she was tired of being sensible, analytical (she analysed information all day, every day, every week, until all she could see were patterns and labels and summary reports), and she _wanted._

She wanted life.

And so Mandana asked Nero if he wanted to dance.


End file.
